—
(While the young girl's story ended with a bittersweet song, our protagonist blended into his own, fully taking on the name he had given himself—Ranmaru—while riding the winds of fate.)
—
The morning breeze brushed against Oliver's face—or rather, Ranmaru's face, as he was known here. His eyes were heavy, his body sluggish.
Strange… why haven't I woken up yet? he thought, staring at the pale sky. Normally the dream ended in one day or his sleep broke, but this time the veil still held.
Is this dream going to last longer than usual? He frowned, remembering last night. He had expected everything to dissolve after he'd passed out drunk by some old lady's house.
A slow grin tugged at his lips. Well, more time means more chances. If I can gather items here and bring them back to the real world… maybe even up his cultivation itself…
Closing his eyes, he sank into his dantian. A faint swirl of Qi moved there—fragile, but real. The discovery made his chest tighten.
But then his mind wandered, dragging him back to the previous night's chaos. He winced. The image was too vivid: his drunken self hammering away at Madam Kayo, the gray-haired widow, in a way he definitely shouldn't have.
"Ah, hell…" he muttered, running a hand over his face. "I really need to watch myself around alcohol. If I'm not careful, that incident is going to repeat itself."
The memory burned in his skull, humiliating and raw. He swore under his breath, biting down a laugh at his own stupidity.
I should've just dual cultivated with Chiyo instead…
He sighed, focusing on following the carriage of hungover drunks as he rode on alongside them like an escort—just like the other Solbar grunts who had been temporarily promoted and allowed to ride the horses of the drunken men being hauled around.
"Not looking so well there, Ranmaru-sama," a promoted grunt said, trying to make small talk as he rode up behind him.
"Ha, don't worry, I won't fall off my horse," Ranmaru remarked, his voice heavier than he intended. "I was just recounting a bad memory from last night." He slowed down slightly, letting the grunt match his pace.
"Bad memories?" the grunt echoed, then smirked as if recalling something. "Was it about that village girl who gave you a parting gift? Don't tell me our second hero's been caught in a village trap~."
"Village trap?… what's that?" Ranmaru asked, eyebrow raised.
"It's a saying among hunters," the grunt explained, half-grinning. "When some honest, soft-hearted hunter gets swindled by a poor village girl—either she ends up pregnant, or she takes a fat share of his coins as compensation; otherwise, she'll kick up a fuss. I really hope you didn't fall for that one."
Ranmaru thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "No, that's not what happened to me," he murmured. "I still have most of my share of the loot intact. In fact, the girl you saw me with wasn't after my money at all."
"Is that so…" the grunt muttered, distracted, staring up ahead.
Ranmaru noticed the shift in tone. He followed the grunt's gaze, and then—
The forest had grown unnaturally still.
Not even the buzzing of cicadas remained, only the faint creak of carriage wheels and the dull thud of horse hooves on the dirt path. One of the carriage horses suddenly jerked its head, snorting and pawing the ground as if it had caught a strange scent. Another whinnied nervously, shaking its mane. The men at the reins swore, pulling hard to calm them, but the tension in the air only grew thicker.
A low wind passed through the treetops, rattling the leaves in a way that seemed almost deliberate. Shadows bent strangely across the path, curling along the edges like long fingers.
"...what the hell is—"
"Yokai!!!" one of the front riders roared, his voice cracking with alarm.
Figures emerged from the treeline. At first, they looked like mist, white shapes drifting through the foliage, but then the forms solidified—long, pale arms dragging across the ground, faces blank except for gaping black maws. Jikininki—corpse-eating spirits, their sunken eyes glowing faintly red.
And behind them, taller and more grotesque, a second figure lurked. Its body was a patchwork of beasts—tiger shoulders, a bear's claw, a wolf's arm, and long deer-like legs stitched together in uneven seams. From its gut jutted a human face, frozen in silent torment. Above it, a deer's skull crowned with crooked antlers rattled with dangling bone charms.
At its back rolled a burning Wanyūdō's wheel. With every turn, fire licked its flesh—muscles bulging, stitches straining, limbs jerking out of rhythm. The wheel didn't just follow; it fed the thing, pumping heat into its mismatched body until it quivered with warped life.
The horses panicked, rearing and crying out, nearly overturning the carriages as the soldiers scrambled to draw their blades.
Ranmaru tightened his grip on the reins, his blood running cold as the suffocating weight of the yokai's presence pressed down on the convoy like a storm about to break. Even the animals sensed it—ears pinned back, hooves stamping furiously at the dirt. The forest itself seemed to recoil, its chorus of crickets and owls fading into an unnatural silence.
The wheel turned once more—and the patchwork horror split apart, its form convulsing as the fire roared through its seams. From the blaze surged a colossal stag, flesh charred and veins glowing like molten cracks in stone. Its eyes blazed with the Wanyūdō's flames, its rack of antlers blackened and jagged as if carved from the wheel itself.
With a thunderous bellow, it lunged forward. The first carriage shattered under its charge, splintered wood and screams filling the fresh day of dawn as the burning beast thrashed, seeking only ruin and carnage.
"Yokai!!!" someone screamed.
Before the echoes had faded, more horrors followed. The Jikininki—ghastly corpse-eaters with distended bellies and rotting flesh—lurched from the shadows. They ignored the living, their glazed eyes fixated on the fifth carriage, where the daimyo's body was kept.
"Archers! Positions!" the leader roared, brandishing his spear as he charged forward to intercept them.
He cut two yokai down in a single sweep, black ichor spraying across the ground. "Loose!" he bellowed.
Arrows whistled through the air, striking the pack. A half-dozen Jikininki fell shrieking, their limbs twitching as the shadows began to consume them.
"You lazy drunks, hold the damned line!" another hunter shouted, hacking into a lunging Jikininki. His blade bit deep, but still the creature clawed forward. "We can't let these corpse-thieves touch the daimyo's remains!"
Amid the chaos, Ranmaru did not move immediately. His gaze was fixed—drawn, almost magnetized—to the twisted deer still rampaging ahead. His heart pounded, yet his hand moved with calm resolve as he unsheathed his katana. Qi surged into his arms, making his veins burn with power.
With a sharp kick, Ranmaru's horse surged forward, hooves thundering as they closed on the monstrous stag.
The beast sensed the charge and wheeled around. Antlers lowered, it lunged headlong—its twisted crown of bone slamming into the horse's chest. The impact was brutal, jagged tines locking its prey in place as it wrenched and tore.
A scream split the night as blood fountained from the horse's neck. Yet it hadn't charged in vain.
Ranmaru was already in the air. His body twisted above the clash, eyes fixed on the stag's crown. He drew on the onryō, muscles hardening as his brow-mark flared with ghostly light. Qi and yokai essence surged through him in unholy fusion, spilling into his meridians like fire.
His blade came down in a furious arc—
Snap!
Half the stag's horn fell away, severed clean before the steel buckled under the strain and shattered in his grip.
The stag's scream shook the clearing, a sound too deep and hateful to belong to any natural beast. Steam poured from its broken crown, but instead of retreating, its body convulsed, bones cracking as if something within sought to tear free.
Its hide split, fur bristling and shifting, and the stag's form warped grotesquely. Antlers melted back into its skull, jaws lengthening into a snarling maw lined with fangs. In moments, the monster that stood before him was no longer a deer but a colossal tiger, its stripes glowing faintly as if seared into its flesh by fire.
With a thunderous roar, it lashed out.
Ranmaru twisted aside, the beast's claw carving a gouge through the earth where he'd stood a heartbeat before. Dirt and stone flew like shrapnel. He rolled, came up on one knee—and saw it.
The broken antler piece he'd severed smoldered in the dirt, glowing red-hot, trembling as if ready to split apart entirely. Without hesitation, he snatched it up.
Flames roared across his arm instantly, devouring sleeve and guards alike—but he did not burn. Instead, a strange pressure pressed into his palm, a weightless force that pulled at the very core of his being. It wasn't heat he felt, but a binding, as if something was reaching through the flames to grasp him in return.
The antler lengthened, the molten surface stretching, hardening, and taking on the form of steel. Fire traced along its edge in ghostly patterns as the weapon reshaped itself.
By the time the blaze dimmed, Ranmaru no longer held a jagged horn but a sword—sleek, curved, a katana born of beast and spirit alike. The hilt pulsed faintly, alive with the same energy that surged through his brow.
The tiger roared again, its eyes burning with primal fury. Ranmaru rose, katana in hand, the contract sealed in silence between man and monster.